Mental disorders can be painful, debilitating, and very costly for the affected individual and their family. Approximately one in five adults in the US experiences a mental disorder in a given year. 18.1% of adults in the US experience an anxiety disorder, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and specific phobias. 6.9% of adults in the US have at least one major depressive episode each year. 1.1% of adults in the US live with schizophrenia.
The consequences of lack of treatment are significant. Mental disorders are the third most common cause of hospitalization in the US for both youth and adults aged 18-44. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US, and the 2nd leading cause of death for those aged 15-24. Each day, approximately 18-22 veterans die by suicide.
A key factor in treatment of mental disorders is proper diagnosis. The standard method of diagnosing mental disorders has been with either the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD), Chapter 5: Mental and behavioural disorders. Both standards primarily involve diagnosis using conversation with the patient regarding symptoms and behavior. This has the disadvantage of being subjective, based on the interviewer, which lessens the diagnostic reliability, sometimes resulting in two clinicians coming to different diagnoses of the same patient.
DSM and ICD are primarily concerned with the signs and symptoms of mental disorders, rather than the underlying causes. This reflects a general lack of pathophysiological understanding of mental disorders.
It is apparent that a repeatable and reliable method of diagnosing mental disorders that is based on measurable data, independent of the interpretation of an interviewer, would provide significant benefit to patients and to the psychiatric community.